On the weekend of September 12th-13th, Phil and I ventured out of Douliu to Taichung...the third largest city in Taiwan, about an hour train ride north of Douliu. Our travels got off to a funny start when we noticed a stray dog in the Douliu Train Station...no one seemed too concerned! :)
We arrived in Taichung on Saturday in the early afternoon and decided we should find a place to stay. To get some ideas, we whipped out our trusty “Lonely Planet” Taiwan travel book. We found a hotel we were interested in staying at and located it within 15 minutes. To our dismay, it had closed down. After we sighed and decided we’d just walk around the city to see what we’d find, we looked up across the street and saw a Holiday Inn Express!
Now, it wasn’t our intention to travel all the way over to Taiwan to stay in American hotels, but when you’re carrying your travel bags around in intense heat and humidity, wondering if you’ll be able to find a place you want to stay and on top of that, wondering if you’ll be able to communicate with anyone at the place you want to stay, seeing a Holiday Inn Express is a breath of fresh air! :) Everyone at the Holiday Inn Express spoke great English and they gave us a room with a very nice view of Taichung Park for half price!
After we checked into our hotel room, we decided it was time for some sightseeing! I work with a guy named Andio. His hometown is Taichung. So, he wrote down some things we should see and do in the city. It was nice because he wrote them down in English and Chinese. This was extremely helpful, especially when we got lost! :)
One of the highlights of our trip to Taichung was visiting a Buddhist temple with an ENORMOUS statue of Laughing Buddha. If you look closely at one of the pictures, you’ll see Phil standing below the statue...that gives you an idea of how big this thing is!
On Saturday night we...I :)...thought it would be fun to get dressed up and go out for a nice dinner. Someone told us about a restaurant we should go to with an English menu and gave us the address.
We found the street on a map and took a taxi (taxies are really cheap in Taiwan) to that street. The street didn’t look very long on the map, so we just thought we’d walk down it and find the restaurant. Well, things didn’t go as planned. We walked down this “not very long” street for about an hour and found nothing. Hungry, sweaty, tired, not so cute anymore we ended up eating at McDonald’s...typical Americans! :)
Then, we took a taxi back to our hotel. Luckily, someone had given us a helpful tip...take pictures of everything, so if you want or need to go back to a particular place, you can just show the taxi driver the picture. It works great!
Then, we took a taxi back to our hotel. Luckily, someone had given us a helpful tip...take pictures of everything, so if you want or need to go back to a particular place, you can just show the taxi driver the picture. It works great!
Kaohsiung
The following weekend, September 18th-19th, we took an hour and a half train ride south to the second biggest city in Taiwan, Kaohsiung. We met up with a few other foreign English teachers that we had met at orientation. It was great to see them and we had a fun time hanging out!
The following weekend, September 18th-19th, we took an hour and a half train ride south to the second biggest city in Taiwan, Kaohsiung. We met up with a few other foreign English teachers that we had met at orientation. It was great to see them and we had a fun time hanging out!
Kaohsiung is beautiful at night. Most of the pictures below are in or around Kaohsiung’s Central Park area.
In Taipei and in Kaohsiung they have a public transportation system called the MRT. This system is extremely convenient and well organized. They also keep the facilities looking amazing! (If you’re caught eating, drinking or chewing gum on the MRT, you have to pay a very large fine.) This system is also intended to be very safe. For example, at most of the stops, there are blue rectangles painted on the floor. People who feel unsafe, traveling alone at night, are suppose to stand in those rectangles because there are security guards watching those areas via video camera at all times. What a great idea!
We stayed at a beautiful hotel for the price of 55 USD per night!
In this hotel, like many other hotels, hospitals, malls and office buildings, they didn’t have a floor number four. The reason for this is the word “four” in Chinese is very similar to the word “death”. (Many people here are very superstitious.)
Our trip to Kaohsiung was fun, but quick! We ended up having to be back in Douliu by the late afternoon on Saturday because one of my co-teachers invited us over for dinner.
KTV
After dinner with my co-teacher and her family on Saturday night, they whipped out their KTV system and we started singing! The great part about KTV that I forgot to mention awhile back when I explained it, is that the pictures and movies going on behind the words have nothing to do with the song. So, for example, you might be singing, “I’m All Out of Love” and be watching people surfing and then an airplane flying and then two kids walking down a sidewalk...you just never know what you’re going to see!
The pictures below are of my co-teachers children. Samantha is in eighth grade and Samuel is three...so cute!
After dinner with my co-teacher and her family on Saturday night, they whipped out their KTV system and we started singing! The great part about KTV that I forgot to mention awhile back when I explained it, is that the pictures and movies going on behind the words have nothing to do with the song. So, for example, you might be singing, “I’m All Out of Love” and be watching people surfing and then an airplane flying and then two kids walking down a sidewalk...you just never know what you’re going to see!
The pictures below are of my co-teachers children. Samantha is in eighth grade and Samuel is three...so cute!
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